Till Morning Comes
by Emm
Summary: Loads of Misty angst, a little bit of Brock angst, and just angst in general


When Morning Comes  
  
by Emm@  
  
~~~  
Authors Note: Yeah, just a short little POV, mostly from Misty. A friendship fic, not romance, and I've decided that Ash just doesn't have enough air time in my stories. Anyhooz, this is just something I wrote when I was at college and on my free period and had nothing to do. And it's weird too. Can't forget the weird. Besides, it's one less little idea running around my head, screaming "Write me! Write me!"  
  
Huh? What do you *mean* you don't have the voices?  
  
  
  
  
~~Stars shining bright above you  
Night breezes seem to whisper, "I love you."  
Birds singing in the sycamore tree  
Dream a little dream of me...  
Say "nighty night" and kiss me,  
Just hold me tight and tell me you miss me  
While I'm alone and blue as can be  
Dream a little dream of me...~~  
  
  
The tinkling music floats into my ears relentlessly, it's tune beating against my eardrums. Why won't it shut up? Why won't it go away?   
  
Familiar. So familiar...   
  
I know I've heard it somewhere before. No. No, it's more than that... this song means something to me. What? Something important, something I will always remember. So familiar... yet so distant. Like the nightmare which evaporates from your mind as soon as you wake up in the morning. It sounds... strange somehow. I suppose I could describe it as... tinny. Slightly metallic, distant. Must find where the music is coming from. Must find out where I know it from. But still so tired....  
  
Where am I? A room. A familiar room. Home. What is with that? Last time I checked, I was sleeping on ground. Hard, bumpy, forest ground. Stones sticking in my back. My folded sweatshirt pillowing my head. Ash snoring down my ear.  
  
Ash?  
  
Ash! Brock! Are they here? How did I get here?  
  
A small cry escapes my mouth, my eyes widened in shock. Home. My home. What am I doing here?  
  
I mentally did the calculations in my head, and ultimately come to the conclusion which I have already guessed. Even if we had a car, there was no way, no how, I could have made it back to Cerulean City in just a few hours. It just wasn't possible. The song continues to play relentlessly, and with a start I look up at the mahogany table beside the arm rest of the couch my head had been pillowed on not moments before. A small, old record player sat there, it's needle skimming along the shiny black surface of the vinyl record. My mouth drops open as I recognise the small yet distinct record player, and I continue to listen, lost in a trance as it plays. It was important. So important. But I can't remember for the life of me why.   
  
Tearing my eyes away from the compact object, I let my eyes sweep over the room again and onto the lone figure standing in the centre of the room. The reason for my distress. The reason for my confusion. Foreboding fills my very being. Something bad's going to happen. I just know it.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Kas sweetie" the solitary voice says, his blue eyes etched with pain and sadness marking his handsome face. I look despairingly at the auburn haired man in his early thirties. His voice... it brings with it a flood of emotions. A thousand long forgotten memories surface in my mind, threatening to overwhealm me. I stumble backwards. Kas. That's what he called me. He was the only one to ever call me by my proper name, Kasumi. Not by my middle name, like everyone else.  
  
"No" I whisper, as the memories hit me full-force. I know what's going to happen. I have to stop it. He smiles at me gently, and starts to hum along to the record player softly. He just stands there, eyes closed, swaying slightly to the music. He opens his mouth and starts to quietly sing, his lips mouthing the words. I close my eyes also, the music washing over me, and I find myself mutely singing along, my mouth seeming to know all the words of their own accord. I open my eyes slowly, just in time to see the man raise a gun to his head. My mouth opens in a silent scream as the scene replays itself again, and he looks at me serenely, a small smile gracing his lips.  
  
"Goodbye Kasumi"  
  
"Dad! No!!!"  
  
As the loud bang echoes throughout the room, I twist my head away, unable to watch it once again. I hear the dull thud of my fathers limp body hitting the floor and staying there, and my eyes suddenly fill with tears which run down my face, leaving tracks on my cheeks as they slide down. I choke down a sob as I slide down the wall into a sitting position, drawing my knees to my chest. The song still pounds in my head, though now it seems to have risen to a ear-splitting screech. Why won't the song go away? Why can't I be left along with my greif? My strangled sobs struggle to be heard above the unbearable screaming in my ear. Who is it? Who is it that screams so loudly and pitifully and desperately?  
  
And then I realise it's me.  
  
  
  
  
  
I jolt awake, a small gasp escaping as I leap forward in my sleeping bag. My eyes dart around anxiously as my foggy brain tries to make sense of everything. Wait, I'm... I'm back in the campsite. Stones sticking in my back. My folded sweatshirt pillowing my head. Ash snoring down my ear. Yep, I'm back. Thank God.  
  
My lungs are screaming for air. Breathe, Misty, breathe. You don't breathe, you'll pass out. I obey the niggling little voice of reason in my head and take big gulps of oxygen. Oh, that feels better. Breathing is good. Suffocating is bad. Suffocating causes death...  
  
Oh God.  
  
I brush aside that feeling again. Y'know, *the* feeling. The feeling that suddenly the floor is pulled out from under me and suddenly I am standing over a empty, black, bottomless void. The feeling that someone's put a hand inside me and ripped out my insides. Y'now... that feeling. The feeling I always get after having the nightmare again.  
  
Still gasping for air, I brush my damp hair out of my heavy, bloodshot eyes. I wipe my forehead as if to erase the murderous headache thumping inside there. My skin is damp, sticky, hot to the touch. Feverish almost. The rapid beating of my own heart sounds deafening in the silence of the forest, and my breathing gradually calms to a steady pace, though I remain anxious and alert. I study the clearing around me, dimly illuminated by the dying embers of the campsite fire. As I view my surroundings, I take time to contemplate.   
  
Every night. I'm afraid to go sleep anymore, for fear that if I do, then that frightening dream will return. It scares me like nothing else, to relive the worst day of my life, over and over and over again. The day my Dad killed himself. The day I became orphaned. The day I will forever remember. This never used to happen. The dreams, I mean. Every so often a nightmare would resurface in my mind, but never so frequently and so vividly. It may have something to do with the fact we're approaching the ten-year mark since it happened. It's taken its toll on my appearence, I know. The guys have noticed but don't say anything. I am grateful to them for that. I'm not ready to talk to them about it, not yet. And I appreciate them for not pushing me. But everytime I close my eyes, it always comes back. Him swaying to the music, a total look of peace behind his closed eyes. His gaunt face staring back at me as he rose the gun to his temples and whispered goodbye. The soft lyrics of the record that played, that will haunt me until the day I die. That's what I see when I dare to fall asleep.  
  
I glance at Ash across the faint orange glow of the fire, and smile slightly. He's curled up in his sleeping bag, so tightly that all I can see is the spikes at the top of his hair sticking out haphazardly and an arm poking out of the edge, resting gently on the dozing Pikachu. A strange, gurgling snore eminates from the sleeping bag, making me laugh softly. My head turns to view my other companion, before instantly fading and turning into a frown as I let my eyes take in what I see there.  
  
Looks like I wasn't the only one having bad dreams.  
  
Brock frowns in his sleep, twisting his head to the side. He mumbles quietly, saying words I can't understand. He kicks out in his sleep, his mumbling getting louder and more incoherent. The frown is quickly replaced by a panicked look and he begins to thrash around, trying to fight off whatever demons there are plaguing his dreams tonight.  
  
I quickly zip open my sleeping bag and stagger out, unsteadily onto my feet, still feeling quite shaken from my dream. I creep quietly across the clearing to his side and kneel down, ignoring the coldness of the earth beneath my bare legs. I dodge his flailing arms and force them to his sides, gently enough not to wake him, but firm enough to restrain him. I sigh quietly to myself as yet again, I carry out the routine which I have carried out every other night for the past few months. Lifting his head gently, I reposition it on my lap, and begin to carry out the nightly ritual I have come to learn so well. Stroking his hair, I massage his upper arm with my thumb and start to mumble meanless, comforting words. It's the same thing, every time this happens. I don't know what it is he dreams about, I don't know about his inner demons. But I know that I have to comfort him. I have to speak to him as he sleeps, reassuring him that it's ok, that everything will be alright in the morning.   
  
Yeah, right.   
  
I know that's not true, and so would he if he were awake to argue. Things will not be 'alright in the morning', and we won't wake up to a bright sunshiney morning and everything will be better and we'll all live happily ever after. Because we won't. Life doesn't work like fairytales, and the nightmares will just come back the next night, and the next, fiercer and more terrifying that ever.   
  
But you know what?  
  
He doesn't care about that when he's asleep. Like me, all he needs is a kind, reassuring word to comfort him, to tell him things will get better, even though they probably won't. So every night that he gets tormented by those evils that attack his mind, I sit with him and tell him what he wants to hear. And in the morning he remembers nothing. Nothing about the previous night. Whether he remembers the nightmare itself, I don't know. He neevr mentions it. Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to forget my dreams and carry on like normal. Maybe he's just a really good actor. I don't know. I just know that I have to be here, ready to tell him it's all ok. I'd do the same for Ash, should the occasion call for it. A flash of sympathy passes my face as I look down at his own struggling features. I may be pestered by terrible dreams every night, but at least I don't cry out so miserably or so despairingly, like he does everytime we do this. He must be having some pretty bad dreams.  
  
He twitches a few times, the eye movement between his closed eyelids slowed. He twists his head slightly to the side, before remaining completely still, falling into a deep slumber. Hopefully, a dreamless one. I wait motionless for a few seconds, until I'm confident that the only movement I can see is the steady rise and fall of his chest. Smiling to myself, I raise his head off of my lap and replace it on his bag, which substitutes for his pillow at the moment. Making sure I haven't woken him, I wearily rise to my feet and stumble back to my sleeping bag, stopping only to ruffle Ash's hair affectionately. As I tiredly close my eyes, a brief smile flashes over my face. I may be going back to the realm of nightmares, but at least my friend was sleeping peacefully, looking forward to the morning when everything will be just fine.   
  
  
  
  
  
I awake slowly, pulled from the blissful unconciousness of a deep dreamless sleep. A rare treat from the nightmares that usually haunt my mind during the long... looong... long nights. I hear a faint cry of anguish, muffled somehow. I glance over at Ash curiously, wondering if it has woken him too. Nope, thought not. The guy could sleep through nuclear war.  
  
I narrow my eyes as I watch Misty twist and flail as she sleeps, her face twisted in fear and phantom pain. I feel my heart sink, just as it does every night, and once again I perform the nightly ritual I have come to know so well. I have nightmares, true. But they happen far less often than Misty's, and I have a feeling that hers are so much more terrifying too. After all, I don't cry out so heart-wrenchingly and desperately. It pulls at the heartstrings, y'know... hearing her like that. I feel so useless, so powerless to protect her from her demons. I don't know what she dreams of, but I've got a pretty good idea. I'm one of the few who know about her past, her childhood.   
  
So I do what little I can. I carefully unzip my sleeping bag and pick her up, letting her sit in my lap, her head propped against my chest. Then I comfort her and reassure her, telling her it'll all be ok if she'll just wait until morning, wiping her tears away, muttering nonsense in her ear. Then she'll go back into a restless sleep and wake up next day, forgetting both the dream and our early hours encounter. And that's how I want it to stay. I promised that I'd take care of them, and I will. Anyway I can. And for now, that means helping to chase away the monsters lurking in her sub-concious. And I'm happy with that.  
  
Tonight she seems more restless, my usual comforting words just won't work. So I rock her gently, telling her it'll be alright when morning comes. Then I remember a song my Mom used to sing me when I was scared to go sleep, because there were monsters under the bed, or I was sure there was something in the closet. So I quietly started to sing it.   
  
~~Stars fading, but I linger on, dear,  
Still craving your kiss  
I'm longing to linger 'til dawn, dear  
Just saying this:  
Sweet dreams 'til sunbeams find you  
Sweet dreams that leave our worries behind you  
But in your dreams, whatever they be,  
Dream a little dream of me...~~ 


End file.
